


Blink

by seasalticecream32



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 16:14:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5792188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seasalticecream32/pseuds/seasalticecream32
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt (from anon): pre-season 3, Morgana's nightmares show her the villain she becomes, and she secludes herself from her closest friends as she tries to come to terms with the visions.</p><p>If Morgana just never closes her eyes again, then all her loved ones will be safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blink

Morgana wakes in the morning in a cold sweat, which isn't unusual. A scream builds in her throat, clawing out from her chest and bursting through her teeth. Gwen's there in a heartbeat.

Lilac embroidery flashes dark purple in her eyes, Gwen's reaching hands and calming voice replaced with a plea and the nails in her arms. Morgana can hear her own voice, cold and foreign, say something about _her_ throne.

The snide remark is so real she can almost feel the shape of the words in her mouth. She swallows it down and bites of the scream still bubbling, ready to break through again.

Gwen is still holding her.

Morgana pushes away and scurries behind her screen, pulling on her simplest dress. She hurries from the room, down to Gaius's study. She asks for a stronger sleeping draught and hurries to hide away in an empty room. The castle is full of them, for guests or for storage. Morgana spends her morning crying and trying to fight down the bile curling in her stomach.

She sleeps in a guest room that night, avoiding Gwen's questions and worry. Avoiding the memory of red gowns and crowns and cold, black towers.

She wakes to a banging on the door, Merlin's voice ringing out and worried.

She isn't sure why he's there until she hears her own voice. It's not quite a yell,, but it's loud enough. She snaps her mouth shut. She'd been chanting words of magic, words to control a beast that only exists in her dreams. She remembers Merlin's pale neck under her hands, his arms tied painfully over his shoulders. She remembers the sound of his tortured cries echoing in a small space, loud and pained.

She remembers the taste of cool water on her tongue and hate blooming painfully in her heart.

She stamps down the anger and wonders if she's been possessed.

Merlin's knocks fade out, his queries after her going silent. She knows he's still standing there, waiting for her to answer him.

“Morgana, I'm coming in,” He says, his voice laced through with worry. The door lock jimmies.

She hides inside a wardrobe, pressing herself against the corner. She can still feel the satisfaction of watching him squirm, sharp cheekbones lit by murky moonlight as he thrashed.

She waits until he's given up searching for her, though she knows his eyes pass the wardrobe more than once without opening the doors.

It's the dreams of Arthur that she's not expecting.

Her sleep deteriorates over the next few days. She's given Gwen a week off and hopes against hope that somehow, Gaius's draughts begin to finally work. (They never have before and she's not sure why she should expect them to.) She's trying not to sleep- every time she closes her eyes, she sees flames and swords and mossy-green grass. Pain slices through her, and she wakes with a heaving chest and her hand clenched hide around her bed sheets.

She always wakes with the burn of hate choking her and consuming her, ebbing away slowly.

She doesn't know who or why or how, but she wakes up hating Arthur Pendragon more than she's hated anyone in her life.

And in the few seconds between the nightmares and her lucid waking, she nearly leaps to her feet to find him.

She's locked her door and refused to open it for just this reason.

When she comes to her senses, she determines to keep her eyes open.

If she never blinks.

If she never sleeps.

If she never closes her eyes for even a second.

Then all of them are safe.


End file.
